


A Trip to Titan

by FlightOfInsanity



Series: Destiny 2 [9]
Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: eliksni guardian, post destiny 2 musings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-26
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-01-05 20:05:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12196488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlightOfInsanity/pseuds/FlightOfInsanity
Summary: Rigel-7 finally gets his jumpship and an excuse to get off Earth.





	1. Chapter 1

Amanda stared absently into the hangar as she was lost in thought. Ships flew in and out of the hangar and frames bustled about making repairs and moving equipment. It almost seemed like nothing had changed but the old Tower was gone, the Traveler was awake, and the Guardians were working to retake new moons and set up bases.

Sloane had requested a maintenance team to be stationed on Titan to help get it back up and running and Amanda was more than happy to try to get her taken care of. Her only problem now was who to send. Frames would be easy enough, but she wanted someone out there to oversee them and—

“Hey!”

Amanda startled with a yelp and whirled around. “ _Rigel!_ Traveler’s _sake_ I am going to put a damn bell on you.”

Rigel’s lights flickered with amusement and Amanda eyed him suspiciously. “What do you want?”

“Oh, nothing much. I just heard that you were looking to send someone to Titan and thought I might drop my name in your proverbial hat.”

She sighed heavily and closed her eyes for a moment. If he knew that much, he’d definitely gotten into the Vanguard’s systems again. Which meant someone would inevitably be coming into her hangar to yell at him. Which meant her relatively peaceful morning was going to be ruined.

He shrugged at her when she looked at him again. “If they wanted to keep me out, they’d try harder.”

“You know if you do go to Titan, Sloane won’t be as easy to schmooze as folks here, right?”

His lights flickered again and he winked. “Is that a yes?”

“That’s a “we’ll see.””

 

* * *

 

The door hissed open with no warning and Jaksis inwardly sighed. As much as he appreciated having a non-Guardian who seemed to genuinely like him, he sometimes regretted giving Rigel the codes to the door.

The exo swooped into the room with a flourish. “Pack your bags, Jak! We’re going to Titan!”

Jaksis didn’t move from his couch. “Neither of us is a Titan.”

Rigel plopped down next to him, his weight making Jaksis bounce up slightly. “No, no, _Titan_. The moon? The moon slash planet that is distinctly not-Earth and has no civilians running around on it to give you the stink eye? We’re going there! Me for maintenance and you for… uh… hunter stuff, I guess.”

A quick consult with his Ghost revealed no such orders being issued to him and he arched a look at Rigel. “Did Cayde give me permission to go?”

Rigel tilted his head back and forth. “More or less.”

So that was a no.

Rigel waved it off. “Look, we all know the City isn’t a great place for you right now, and I can make the argument that I’ll need Guardian protection I know and trust. Cayde’ll be fine with it and if not, I’m taking you anyway. Amanda already gave me a ship.”

Jaksis blinked slowly at Rigel. It was true enough that the City wasn’t a very pleasant place. This new Wall-Tower had many more civilians freely roaming in it and so soon after the attack and many battles, they were pretty cold to anything not-human. His Ghost had taken to hovering around his head and shoulders when he wandered around to try to put them at ease but it didn’t always help. Even if Cayde hadn’t cleared it, the idea of being on a world with none of that was incredibly tempting.

“What sort of enemies are on Titan?”

Rigel shrugged. “Dunno. I think I skimmed a report about Hive?”

At least maybe he would get a break from having to fight Eliksni. Hopefully wouldn’t have to see any more Cabal.

Rigel bumped a shoulder into his before standing up. “Think about it? Amanda wants us to leave tomorrow. I figure we’ll tell Cayde what we’re doing on the way out of the hangar so he can’t say no.”

Jaksis nodded. “I will… let you know.”

The exo gave a salute as he retreated out the door. Jaksis watched it slide closed and then turned to look out the small window at the Traveler. People said it was awake now. It certainly looked different – the shards orbiting around it giving it a feeling of life and activity – but it didn’t feel any different. Didn’t answer his questions anymore than it had before. And with no Speaker…

His shoulders dropped and he heard his Ghost appear. She floated around in front of him so he would focus on her. Ever so gently she bumped into his head, her lights momentarily filling his vision, before tucking herself into his hood and nestling into his scarf. They both felt the loss of the Speaker, both wished there was something they could have done.

“What do you think?”

“It is your decision to make,” she said and he huffed. “But… it might be nice to get away for a while.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Late night?”

Jaksis waved a hand to the side in a lazy shrug. “Less traffic now.”

Cayde nodded and slouched into the framework over his desk somehow making the metal beam look entirely comfortable. Jaksis hadn’t entirely expected the hunter vanguard to be at his desk at nearly three in the morning and he realized he wasn’t sure what he was going to say.

“You’re wondering if I’ll give you official clearance to go to Titan.”

Jaksis blinked in surprise. “How did--?”

Cayde arched a brow at him. “I do know a thing or two, you know.”

“Right. Of course. So--?” Jaksis trailed off, hoping Cayde would give him an answer. Instead the exo looked him over with a curious expression. For as difficult as humans and awoken were to read, Jaksis realized exos were much much worse. Rigel’s lights seemed to flash constantly, making his moods a little easier to gauge. Cayde, on the other hand, seemed much better at keeping his under control.

“Do you want to go to Titan?”

Jaksis started to reply and Cayde held up a hand. “I don’t want to know if you feel obligated to go, or if you feel like you need to go because Rigel is. I want to know if _you_ want to go.”

That gave him pause. Did he?

He had always wanted the ability to travel elsewhere – to see other worlds and fight something other than eliksni he felt were doing nothing but try to survive on the same planet they were. Rigel, certainly, he didn’t want to lose, which was a surprise to realize. The exo had been a constant friend since they’d met, and for as much as Jaksis had suspicions of his motives, Rigel seemed to genuinely enjoy being in his company. The Tower would be a lonely place without that guaranteed friendly face.

The Tower… That was another thing all on its own. Before this last year, it felt separate from the City – Guardians and civilians were two distinct groups and he appreciated that divide. Fellow Guardians knew him as a Guardian, even if they didn’t go out of their way to be friendly. Now, though, there was an obvious effort to integrate civilians into daily Guardian life in the Tower and it was awkward for him to say the least. These pre-dawn hours were the one time there were few enough people awake to make the Tower comfortable for him to roam freely. If Titan truly was only Guardians and old Tower workers it would be a welcome relief.

He nodded once. “Yes.”

Cayde nodded. “Good enough for me. You happy with your gear?”

“It fits and has served me well.”

A flicker of throat lights. “Not sure if that’s a yes or a no, but if you need any new weapons be sure to get ‘em before you leave.”

Jaksis dipped his head in acknowledgement and made to leave.

“Oh, one more thing. Hang on.”

Cayde stood away from where he’d been leaning and started digging through some boxes piled to the side of his desk. With a triumphant “ah ha!” he turned and tossed something to Jaksis, who nearly dropped it in surprise. It was a colorful cube made of smaller cubes. Metal or plastic or something, he wasn’t entirely sure. It looked old and he wondered where Cayde had found it.

“What is it?”

“A puzzle, I think. You can twist the segments around.”

Jaksis slowly turned a layer of cubes. It was a little stiff but didn’t feel like it was going to break. He looked at the puzzle in his hands and then back up at Cayde.

“Why?”

The exo crossed his arms and shrugged. “Just… thought you might like it.”

Jaksis looked back down at the game and slowly twisted it a couple more times.

“You did good work. In the City.”

He glanced up again. Cayde had a hand on the back of his neck and was looking anywhere but at Jaksis while he spoke.

“You had every reason to turn your back on it and leave – and I can’t say I wouldn’t have done that in your position – but you didn’t. So… thanks. I probably owe ya more than that, but… yeah.”

Jaksis shrugged, unsure what to say now. No one tended to thank him for being a Guardian, least of all the hunter vanguard. “Thank you. For… everything.”

“You got it, Hunter.”

The silence grew more and more uncomfortable and Cayde coughed, the sound echoing through the mostly empty hangar. “Anyway. Go, shoo. I’m sure you’ve got things to pack.”

Jaksis shook his shoulders. “Of course. Yes.”

The walk back to his room was spent fiddling with the puzzle game and thinking over how the conversation had gone. He expected Cayde to either deny him passage or to tell him to go, but in a “please go somewhere else” kind of way. Instead he’d gotten a gift and the vanguard embracing him as one of his hunters.

It was a very nice turn of events.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a little self-indulgent, because I thought of Jak tucked up somewhere with a rubiks cube and decided I really, really wanted that.
> 
> Cayde's been... uuuhhhhh, kind of a dick to Jak since he first showed up at the Tower but thanks to some as-yet unwritten/unfinalized stuff that happens during the assault on the City at the end of the game, he really starts to appreciate Jak as a hunter and realizes he may owe the boy an apology (as awkward and Cayde-like as it ends up being).


	3. Chapter 3

The seats in the jumpship certainly weren’t meant to be used the way Jaksis was sitting in his, but he figured they weren’t meant for an eliksni to sit in anyway, so it really didn’t matter. He shrugged his shoulders around, wiggling into a slightly more comfortable position nearly upside down in the seat.

“If we crash you’re going to get thrown through the front of the ship,” Rigel said.

“If you manage to crash in the middle of a jump we were doomed to die anyway.”

Rigel laughed. It wasn’t like he was wearing any sort of restraints either. He propped his feet up on the control console and hummed quietly. The soft, regular clicking of the cube puzzle Jaksis had filled the space, providing unintentional accompaniment.

They still had a couple hours of flight before they got to Titan, but neither one was concerned with the time. Rigel was beyond delighted to finally have gotten a ship with a jump-drive, and Jaksis was more than happy to tag along.

“Have you figured out what the goal is, yet?”

The clicking stopped as Jaksis rotated the cube around in his hands and looked at the sides. “Not yet,” he said. “Possibly to get each side one color.”

“Is there anything in it?”

“I thought there might be, but Sarys says it’s just these cubes.”

The pair lapsed back into silence. The puzzle, the ambient noises of the ship, and Rigel’s humming all blended together into a sort of tune to fill the time.

“Why did you want to go to Titan?”

“Hm?” Rigel looked over at Jaksis – the eliksni had tilted his head back so he could see the exo. Rigel thought he looked broken.

“You. Why were you so keen on going to Titan?”

“Curiosity.”

“Of?”

Rigel shrugged and his throat lights flickered amusement. “No particular reason, just… curious. It’s an entire moon covered in oceans and Golden Age tech.”

Jaksis looked like he didn’t believe it. Like he thought there was more to the story, but Rigel said nothing else and he let it drop. Whatever Rigel was up to, he was sure he’d find out eventually.


	4. Chapter 4

Jaksis looked down at Rigel from his place in the rafters and blinked languidly in boredom. They’d been waiting to talk to Sloane for at least fifteen minutes, but the fireteam that had just landed would not stop asking questions. Rigel’s lights flickered in amusement and he drummed his hands on the desk he was using as a seat. A warlock gave him a brief look of disgust before turning back to Sloane.

They’d been here for a couple weeks now and Jaksis had come to the conclusion that he loved being on Titan. He was very fond of the sounds of the waves and the gentle motions of the station; even the occasional storms that came through were a delight. Some of the civilian technicians were terrified each time a storm rumbled over, convinced they were going to be knocked into the sea, but he figured with as long as it had survived unattended it would be fine for a while.

Sloane had given them a few days to settle in and get familiar with the station. There weren’t exactly dormitories, but they’d found an empty floor of a building near the command center and claimed it as their own. Rigel had spent the days since pouring over schematics and inventories and accessing whatever systems he could to figure out how things worked. Jaksis had skimmed the scout reports Sloane had forwarded – most of them were about the hive and their nesting grounds but a few, disappointingly, contained reports of eliksni scattered about the station.

Aside from a few minor repair orders that Rigel had received, they hadn’t had to do much since landing. Jaksis suspected that was about to change, as soon as this fireteam would leave and they could see what Sloane wanted.

A few minutes later, possibly hurried by Rigel’s incessant drumming, the fireteam finally moved along. Jaksis watched them leave before dropping out of the rafters, joining Rigel in the fireteam’s place.

“Thanks for coming, you two,” she said. “And sorry about… that.”

Rigel waved it off. “No harm done. You said you had a job for us?”

She sighed through her nose and then nodded. “Right, yes. A team was chasing a Captain out of a control center and ended up pulling some data on an old methane reactor. I’d like you to take a look—” she tossed a datapad to Rigel, “—and see if you can’t get it back online.”

Rigel’s lights flickered a bright staccato as he immediately began digging into the information he’d been given.

“Oh wow!” he said. “This is… this is _so cool!_ ”

Sloane arched a brow at him. “So you think you can get it running?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely,” Rigel replied with a distracted wave. “Might, uh… might take a minute though. Need to… hmm…”

He tapped a finger against the datapad while staring blankly into space before suddenly rushing out of the room. Jaksis sighed and waved a hand in his direction. There was no point in trying to call him back when his mind had been set on a new puzzle.

“He’s certainly interesting, isn’t he?” Sloane mused.

“That’s putting it mildly,” Jaksis said with a blink of amusement.

Sloane crossed her arms and shifted her weight to her other foot, giving Jaksis a look he couldn’t quite interpret.

“Make sure he gets that reactor up and running,” she said. “We need that extra power.”

Jaksis nodded, a little confused. That was the reason he was here, after all.

Sloane’s expression changed, carrying some new unknown message. “If you need a hand, I’ll send you some backup. We need to make sure we get the reactor and that Captain doesn’t.”

Ah. So that was it.

“I can handle it. You will have your reactor,” he said, trying not to bristle at the doubt in Sloane’s words.

She nodded once, a dismissal, and Jaksis took his leave from the room, hurrying to catch up to Rigel. With any luck this reactor would be quick and easy to switch on and they wouldn’t have to fight with the Captain at all.


End file.
